Designing the eatwell week: the application of eatwell plate advice to weekly food intake

<p>To develop a menu and resource to illustrate to consumers and health professionals what a healthy balanced diet looks like over the course of a week.</p> <p>Development and analysis of an illustrative 7 d ‘eatwell week’ menu to meet current UK recommendations for nutrients with a Dietary Reference Value, with a daily energy base of 8368 kJ (2000 kcal). Foods were selected using market research data on meals and snacks commonly consumed by UK adults. Analysis used the food composition data set from year 1 (2008) of the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme. The eatwell week menu was developed using an iterative process of nutritional analysis with adjustments made to portion sizes and the inclusion/exclusion of foods in order to achieve the target macronutrient composition.</p> <p>Three main meals and two snacks were presented as interchangeable within the weekdays and two weekend days to achieve adult food and nutrient recommendations. Main meals were based on potatoes, rice or pasta with fish (two meals; one oily), red meat (two meals), poultry or vegetarian accompaniments. The 5-a-day target for fruit and vegetables (range 5–6·7 portions) was achieved daily. Mean salt content was below recommended maximum levels (<6 g/d). All key macro- and micronutrient values were achieved.</p> <p>Affordable foods, and those widely consumed by British adults, can be incorporated within a 7 d healthy balanced menu. Future research should investigate the effect of using the eatwell week on adults’ dietary habits and health-related outcomes.</p&gt

Stable isochronal synchronization of mutually coupled chaotic lasers

The dynamics of two mutually coupled chaotic diode lasers are investigated experimentally and numerically. By adding self feedback to each laser, stable isochronal synchronization is established. This stability, which can be achieved for symmetric operation, is essential for constructing an optical public-channel cryptographic system. The experimental results on diode lasers are well described by rate equations of coupled single mode lasers

High-resolution thermal expansion measurements under Helium-gas pressure

We report on the realization of a capacitive dilatometer, designed for high-resolution measurements of length changes of a material for temperatures 1.4 K $\leq T \leq$ 300 K and hydrostatic pressure $P \leq$ 250 MPa. Helium ($^4$He) is used as a pressure-transmitting medium, ensuring hydrostatic-pressure conditions. Special emphasis has been given to guarantee, to a good approximation, constant-pressure conditions during temperature sweeps. The performance of the dilatometer is demonstrated by measurements of the coefficient of thermal expansion at pressures $P \simeq$ 0.1 MPa (ambient pressure) and 104 MPa on a single crystal of azurite, Cu$_3$(CO$_3$)$_2$(OH)$_2$, a quasi-one-dimensional spin S = 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet. The results indicate a strong effect of pressure on the magnetic interactions in this system.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, published in Rev. Sci. Instrum with minor change

Multicopper oxidase-1 is a ferroxidase essential for iron homeostasis in Drosophila melanogaster

Multicopper ferroxidases catalyze the oxidation of ferrous iron to ferric iron. In yeast and algae, they participate in cellular uptake of iron; in mammals, they facilitate cellular efflux. The mechanisms of iron metabolism in insects are still poorly understood, and insect multicopper ferroxidases have not been identified. In this paper we present evidence that Drosophila melanogaster multicopper oxidase-1 (MCO1) is a functional ferroxidase. We identified candidate iron binding residues in the MCO1 sequence and found that purified recombinant MCO1 oxidizes ferrous iron. An association between MCO1 function and iron homeostasis was confirmed by two observations: RNAi-mediated knockdown of MCO1 resulted in decreased iron accumulation in midguts and whole insects, and weak knockdown increased the longevity of flies fed a toxic concentration of iron. Strong knockdown of MCO1 resulted in pupal lethality, indicating that MCO1 is an essential gene. Immunohistochemistry experiments demonstrated that MCO1 is located on the basal surfaces of the digestive system and Malpighian tubules. We propose that MCO1 oxidizes ferrous iron in the hemolymph and that the resulting ferric iron is bound by transferrin or melanotransferrin leading to iron storage, iron withholding from pathogens, regulation of oxidative stress and/or epithelial maturation. These proposed functions are distinct from those of other known ferroxidases Given that MCO1 orthologs are present in all insect genomes analyzed to date, this discovery is an important step toward understanding iron metabolism in insects

Performance of Hamamatsu 64-anode photomultipliers for use with wavelength--shifting optical fibres

Hamamatsu R5900-00-M64 and R7600-00-M64 photomultiplier tubes will be used with wavelength--shifting optical fibres to read out scintillator strips in the MINOS near detector. We report on measurements of the gain, efficiency, linearity, crosstalk, and dark noise of 232 of these PMTs, of which 219 met MINOS requirements.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures. Accepted by Nucl. Inst. Meth.

New light on the ‘Drummer of Tedworth’: conflicting narratives of witchcraft in Restoration England

This paper presents a definitive text of hitherto little-known early documents concerning ‘The Drummer of Tedworth’, a poltergeist case that occurred in 1662-3 and became famous not least due to its promotion by Joseph Glanvill in his demonological work, Saducismus Triumphatus. On the basis of these and other sources, it is shown how responses to the events at Tedworth evolved from anxious piety on the part of their victim, John Mompesson, to confident apologetic by Glanvill, before they were further affected by the emergence of articulate scepticism about the case

21-cm synthesis observations of VIRGOHI 21 - a possible dark galaxy in the Virgo Cluster

Many observations indicate that dark matter dominates the extra-galactic Universe, yet no totally dark structure of galactic proportions has ever been convincingly identified. Previously we have suggested that VIRGOHI 21, a 21-cm source we found in the Virgo Cluster using Jodrell Bank, was a possible dark galaxy because of its broad line-width (~200 km/s) unaccompanied by any visible gravitational source to account for it. We have now imaged VIRGOHI 21 in the neutral-hydrogen line and find what could be a dark, edge-on, spinning disk with the mass and diameter of a typical spiral galaxy. Moreover, VIRGOHI 21 has unquestionably been involved in an interaction with NGC 4254, a luminous spiral with an odd one-armed morphology, but lacking the massive interactor normally linked with such a feature. Numerical models of NGC 4254 call for a close interaction ~10^8 years ago with a perturber of ~10^11 solar masses. This we take as additional evidence for the massive nature of VIRGOHI 21 as there does not appear to be any other viable candidate. We have also used the Hubble Space Telescope to search for stars associated with the HI and find none down to an I band surface brightness limit of 31.1 +/- 0.2 mag/sq. arcsec.Comment: 8 pages, accepted to ApJ, uses emulateapj.cls. Mpeg animation (Fig. 2) available at ftp://ftp.naic.edu/pub/publications/minchin/video2.mp

Four-quark flux distribution and binding in lattice SU(2)

The full spatial distribution of the color fields of two and four static quarks is measured in lattice SU(2) field theory at separations up to 1 fm at beta=2.4. The four-quark case is equivalent to a qbar q qbar q system in SU(2) and is relevant to meson-meson interactions. By subtracting two-body flux tubes from the four-quark distribution we isolate the flux contribution connected with the four-body binding energy. This contribution is further studied using a model for the binding energies. Lattice sum rules for two and four quarks are used to verify the results.Comment: 46 pages including 71 eps figures. 3D color figures are available at www.physics.helsinki.fi/~ppennane/pics